Homemade AT-AT loft bed

This video documents the creation of a fabulous homemade Star Wars AT-AT walker loft bed, built by a father for his son. It's made from everyday, easy-to-source materials and includes a hide-hole loft (in the AT-AT's body) with trap-door access. This fills me with feelings of fatherly inadequacy and makes me start plotting something equally elaborate for Poesy once she's big enough to enjoy a trap door.

Star Wars Imperial Walker Loft Bed (Thanks, Stagueve!

Previously:

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Copyfight • Gadgets • Happy Mutants • Kids • maker

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Takuan

can’t sleep, stormtroopers will eat me..
anansi133

…Thus demonstrating the evolutionary reason that it’s hard for a nerd to get a date. See what happens when they breed?
Anonymous

You know, this seems really cool, as long as you aren’t the person who has to make that bed. My kids have a normal bunk bed and I’m the one who washes the sheets every weekend. Even though that’s pretty much the only time the bed gets completely made, it’s enough of a PITA for me to swear off bunk beds for ever. (Or is it forever?)
Jack Daniel

Man…and my parents wouldn’t even get me that racecar bed.
cinemajay

I find your lack of Star Wars twin size bedsheets disturbing.
Fee

It’s Ok, Cory, don’t despair. This is a great project, but as other posters have mentioned, providing something as detailed and as permanent as this could prove to be an eventual millstone.

The greatest success I had with making stuff for my children, was a conversion of a huge cardboard freezer deivery box into a house/shop. I am indebted to Rosemary Leach for the information that if you paint cardboard with emulsion or gloss paint, it becomes a lot more durable. It can also be papier mached and become a *lot* stronger as a result. Children love playing shops and clever design can give you something that will convert from the bar in star wars to red riding hood’s granny’s house to the corner sweet shop.

In terms of giving your child the chance to use their imagination, less is definitely more.
yurei

This is a tragedy waiting to happen; you just know that someone’s going to toss a grenade up through that trapdoor.
Agit

I wonder if he was talking about THE City Museum in St. Louis in the intro fly-by text?

If so way cool, that is one of my favorite places, and I used to frequent it a bit when I lived in St. Louis..

http://www.citymuseum.org/

The guy who owns it/creates there is a true Master Maker.
funkadelic73

All that attention to detail by dad, and the kid had to screw it up by pairing the Vader costume with Mace Windu’s lightsabre. THE HORROR.

:)
Brainspore

No one has yet pointed out that that is an Imperial Walker and not an AT-AT? Shame on you fanboys!

An Imperial Walker IS an AT-AT, you silly goose.
Anonymous

I give it 3 months before the kid accidentally rips the head off going up that ladder.
Anonymous

Apparently my dad never loved me.
bunkbedreviews

Ah, the inspiration of the city museum! Nice bed, but these imperial beasts used to make me SOIL MY PANTS at night! http://bunkbedskidsfurniture.com/blog/star-wars-at-at-imperial-walker-bunk-bed/
Vengefultacos

You know my fear would be, I’d spend all of that time crafting it for the kid, and the result would be… “Star Wars? Laaaaame! I wanna Harry Potter bed!”

My other fear would be that he’d still have and be using his bed in his 30′s, down in the basement…
flytch

now that’s cool :) great work dad!!!!!
Anonymous

I’d love to see what happens when lil Bubba brings his first girlfriend home.
prunk

thanks Brainspore, I didn’t want to have to be the nerd that pointed out the nuances of the Imperial
transport systems naming schemes.

I had a double-decker bed in university. The bed was on the top and all the clothes hung underneath it. Along with my dresser and storage bin and computer desk and sound system…. those rooms were small. I could definitely have used a trap door or two.
MarkM

Tragically and coincidentally, his child, too, was severely burned in the lava pits of Mustafar and equipped with a cybernetic breathing apparatus at an Imperial rehabilitation center.
Egypt Urnash

The photos at the end of the kid in a Darth Vader costume in front of it are awesome.

Next step: painting the kid’s room the steely blue of Hoth skies. *grin*
Brainspore

I’d be more worried about the family cat bringing the thing down by running between the legs while trailing a ball of string.
phillamb168

That last still w/ mini-Vader going through the “Escape Hatch” was quite teh awesome.
RedShirt77

That tauntaun bag is both incredibly awesome and disturbing at the same time.

The bed is awesome but that dad needs to get his son a darth vader light saber to make the outfit complete.
Anonymous

No one has yet pointed out that that is an Imperial Walker and not an AT-AT? Shame on you fanboys!
Anonymous

VERY cool! But it doesn’t look good for the father.
Judging by the bed spread, he may be building an Optimus Prime bed soon.
Darren Garrison

Goes great with this:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/tauntaun.html
SweetCuppinCakes

Nice. But “Transformers” bed spread? RUINED!!